Writing Update/Validation

I haven't been writing much at all lately, but I do have an update. My younger daughter is just about to finish fourth grade. Bear with me here. Her teacher spends time reading aloud from books during the year, mostly on Thursdays but occasionally at other times when there's a spare moment.

Earlier this year after the teacher had finished reading whatever story they were going through, my daughter asked the teacher if she would read "my dad's book" to the class. My daughter has a copy I gave her and she keeps it in her backpack.

The teacher agreed, but only if she had my permission. I was surprised to find out, and nervous, but also very curious about what my target demo would think so of course I said "Yes!"

Fast forward to two weeks ago when I went to the school to pick up my kids. Several fourth graders approached me and started asking all kinds of questions about my book! They wanted to know if I would draw a picture of a statue mentioned in there, or if I could tell them what was going to happen next. Apparently my daughter flat out refuses to "spoil" her classmates.

And now with just one week of school left, they're on the final chapter. There's a chance they won't finish the book so I pointed the teacher to the free .pdf download at lulu.com so she could tell the kids' parents where to find it if they're interested.

I have to admit that this has started to rejuvenate my interest in writing again, after a good long 6 months of apathy. One of the interesting things about this whole story is that the teacher told me that every kid in the class voted to keep reading my book and they have all expressed interest on their own without being prompted. I'm sure my press agent, er, I mean daughter, has something to do with that but I also like to believe that the kids are really enjoying the characters and plot and setting. Also, hearing that the kids actually laughed at the parts I intended to be funny led to a sigh of relief.

And that's especially fun for me because an editor I hired to read that book told me that I should "spend more time around kids, maybe volunteer to be a big brother" thinking that I was not relating to my target audience.

But I think this is a little validation, and who doesn't like a little validation?